NEW DELHI: Dismissing speculation that he was trying
to get close to the BJP as ‘ridiculous’, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on
Tuesday said those demanding that he be punished for allegedly praising
Narendra Modi have neither understood his remarks, nor bothered to talk to him.

Amid controversy over Modi’s invitation to him for ‘Swachh
Bharat’ campaign, to which he responded positively leading to an outcry from
Congress’s Kerala unit, Tharoor said, “The fact is that we don’t do nuance in
our politics.”

“Nobody understands when somebody is trying to express
a complex set of ideas,” he said and underlined he has been seen by some as a ‘foreign
object in the body politic’. “And perhaps there is a difficulty in digesting
who I am and how I conduct myself,” he told a TV channel when asked about the
controversy.

Signalling that disciplinary action would be
contemplated against Tharoor if he kept on lauding Modi’s initiatives, KPCC
Vice President MM Hassan said in Thiruvananthapuram, “As a first step, we are
asking him to stop praising Modi as his stance went totally against the
Congress' ideals.”

Tharoor said that he is different from those who have
devoted their entire life to politics, served the nation, served the party. “I
have indeed had a different career. I have come into politics late in my life
and as a professional and perhaps there are some incompatibilities that have
manifested these reactions,” he said.

Tharoor has maintained that his response to Modi’s
call to support the 'Swachh Bharat' campaign would not mean that he even
remotely endorsed the BJP’s ‘core Hindutva’ agenda and that he continued to be
a ‘proud Congressman’.

“It is completely ridiculous. I reject it
completely," Tharoor said when asked about talks in some sections within
his party and outside that Tharoor was trying to get close to the BJP. Tharoor
said that the amusing thing is that everybody who has been seen on television
channels has his number.